The story immediately below reminded me of my very first bike, an ungainly Flexible Flyer with balloon tires and a sprung front fork. It was originallly Ford Black, had a tank style frame, and had been painted with goats-vomit green rust-o-leum. No chrome was intact. the seat was mostly there, but later had to be held together with tape and rope. I learned to ride this bike, remarkably enough, by the sink or swim method.

How does that apply to bikes, you might ask? Well, you have your next door neighbor Gogi help you drag the bike to the top of a steep hill, where he helps you mount the bike and gives you a healthy push, sending you careening down the hill towards the road.

The first several times I managed to only stay on the bike until his hand left it, and spent the rest of the trip downhill sliding on the right side of my face in the hard yellow indiana clay. By the fifth or sixth time, I had managed to make it halfway down the hill astride the flyer, but my depth perception was going to hell as my face was being distorted by the friction of the dirt against my face. “it’s normal” said Gogi. “some fish also have both eyes on one side of their head, they’re called hallabutt”. I stopped for the day figuring i’d let the headwounds heal before moving on to phase 2.

Next day, as soon as Dad left for work, I dragged the Flyer up the hill, vision still distorted somewhat, when Gogi snuck up on me by standing immediately in front of me. “Oh, goge, I didn’t see you there. Wanna help me with the bike?” I asked. “Mom says I better not or your parents will probably press charges” he responded. So I push the bike up the hill by myself, and hop on. It’s a boys bike, and I’m none too tall at nine plus years old, so I’m tottering back and forth on my tiptoes as the frame insures I won’t have a whole houseful of kids unless I adopt. I put one foot up on the pedal and lift myself to the seat and the bike begins to move, powered, for the first time, by me! I’m so excited I barely get the other foot on the other pedal as I start off downhill, wobbling and overcorrecting, but RIDING!

Of course I fall off after six feet, and this time enmesh myself in the bike frame. Several spokes break off and embed themselves in my buttocks like porupine quills and the handlebars are now making an intimate acquaintance with my kidneys. My feet are, remarkably, still on the pedals, but they’re the WRONG pedals. Inertia continues to carry the bike forward down the hill so that I may brake my progress by digging my shoulder into the gravel at the street.

Now, when I say “Hill” you should think “cliff”. It’s great for downhill skiing and luge, but for bicycling is sheer madness. And when I say “street” think tar-bubbling tarmack with a thin coat of razor sharp gravel reapplied a couple times a year. Which they were going to be doing in about five minutes. Just the time it would take for me to get the bike back to the top of the hill.

I have the knack, though. I now know I can navigate that bike down the hill, and I mount my rusty steed with the confidence of an old master. I put foot to pedal and stand to pump as I crest rhe ridge, and take off downhill at a breakneck speed, screaming along down the hill, head (apparently) held at a jaunty, cocky angle (actually just trying to get both eyes to focus in the same place)

As I approach the bottom, I discover that the local streets and san folks have chosen this moment to apply a fresh coat of tarmacadam, and the tar tanker is in my immediate path. Braking was still hours in my future, and my forward/downward progress was arrested by making rapid full bike/body contact with the hot tar tank.

Thankfully the bike and the truck are both going at relatively low speed, and the driver hears and stops before running over the bike (something I would curse him for for years) but it doesn’t stop me, freshly coated with globs of warm tar (which, in case you didn’t know, HURTS!) and I’ve fallen in the freshly spread pea gravel.

Now, at this point in my young life, I have, in the span of less than a minute, learned multiple things:

1: I can ride a bike!
2: Brakes are good.
3: Tar burns
4: being tarred and feathered is a complete and utter luxury compared to being tarred and gravelled.
5: Gasoline is the only effective cleaner to get tar off your skin
6: Gasoline burns like hell in skin already damaged by hot tar
7: gravity is a harsh mistress.